Dalai Lama says ‘Vast possibilities are available to the people of Ireland’ (April 2011 event)

by on the scratcher Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:08

How much is it to see "his holiness"?

by joe Fri Feb 04, 2011 12:30

A disgrace that this holy CIA asset should merit an indymedia feature on the day that hundreds of thousands are marching to demand the end of the CIA-backed Mubarak regime in Egypt The Egyptian community in Ireland and Palestinian activists have organised a demonstration in support of the Egyptian protests which starts at 3.30 at Dublin's O' Connell St Spire.

Update of Dublin Demo in Solidarity with the Egyptian People:

There is a call for a massive Demo by the Palestinian Rights Institute(PRI), the Egyptian and Muslim community and other groups to meet at the Spire O'Connell street followed by a march to the Egyptian Embassy in Solidarity with the Egyptian People, all are welcome, please invite as many people to this event as possible.

Time: 3.30pm on Friday the 4th of February.
Location:
Meet at the Spire, O'Connell Street, Dublin.
http://www.yelp.ie/map/the-spire-dublin

Egyptian Embassy, 12 Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Ireland
http://www.yelp.ie/map/embassy-of-egypt-dublin

Earlier today(2/2/2011), witnesses said the military allowed thousands of pro-Mubarak supporters, armed with sticks and knives, to enter Tahrir Square. Opposition groups said Mubarak had sent in thugs to suppress anti-government protests.

Our message to the people of Egypt:
We will stand in solidarity with you, we support your struggle for freedom, democracy and human rights.

Bring your Flag and your banners but most of all bring your spirit.

by pat c Fri Feb 04, 2011 14:49

There should be no welcome for this homophobic "godking". Supporting the right of the people of Tibet to Self Determination does not mean you have to welcome a reactionary.

Support the demos in support of the Egyptian People.

Ignore the events glorifying that grinning homophobic moron.

by Gambler. Fri Feb 04, 2011 14:57

"Vast possibilities" can swing two ways.
Ask the people of Germany who lived through 1945.

by Des - None Fri Feb 04, 2011 16:26

Yes, there are definitely ‘vast possibilities’ for the Irish people. In fact we are already experiencing such ‘possibilities’, unemployment, a health ‘service’ where your financial situation dictates the pace at which treatment is delivered. Where the most vulnerable, those on social welfare have had their already low incomes reduced twice, while our ‘government’ spends vast sums on bailing out financial speculators and ‘developers’. Where politicians receive vast sums on ‘retiring’ after taking the country to the edge of the abyss. The organisers of this ‘event’ must be living in another world. Incidentally, the fact that he is a Nobel ‘peace’ price person is not a big deal, when one considers previous recipients of the ‘award’, e.g. Henry Kissinger of Vietnam war, Bangle Desh famine, Chile and East Timor fame.

by JoeC Sat Feb 05, 2011 15:07

As far as I know the organisers are working to ensure more accessible tickets to youth and community groups. Perhaps if you can't afford it you can contact them. I suppose the 50 quid is about what value the event is to you.

Yes Eygpt is an immediate and urgent issue but we need to see the big picture snd take the long view.

Its not one thing versus the other.

As for CIA remarks, it's hard to see how this stacks up. It seems the CIA gave some tiny botched support for the Tibetans as many fled the Mao invasion 60 years ago. They then ran off and the Dalai Lama, who was around 19 at the time, is on record saying he found this out later, wasn't aware of it and didn't support it. It's all public knowledge.

As far as I can see, from quick research, he isn't a homophobe unlike many spiritual leaders. Although, as you might expect he is conservative around sexuality and takes a spiritual view of sex and relationships.

As for the god king stuff it seems he is pretty grounded, doesn't carry on like a tyrant and is working to revolutionalise what is an ancient culture and their widespread belief in reincarnated
leaders. He lives in exile and I heard he carries a refugee travel card. On that note he seems to
be leading a push to full democracy unlike so many other leaders, especially those facing
genocide and the might of a power such as China. The DL sees himself as a simple monk and
encourages westerners to stick with their own cultures. He is offering a message that we need
to take control of our minds and to take social action - which in my book makes him a fairly
useful and high profile ally, despite peoples fears of him being a spiritual man etc

I don't think we should all bow to or follow the DL. I don't think he wants us to. I certainly don't think he has all the answers to Ireland's problems and I am sure he doesn't. If we keep reacting and criticising without thinking deeper then we will miss the point and the value of his role in helping us create radical change.

by Simon Sat Feb 05, 2011 20:25

It's a pity that Indymedia is putting this up. The Dalai Lama is a right-wing fraud, who regards women's rights, the rights of the poor and the rights of gays and lesbians as something to be fought against. He has consistently demonstrated hatred towards any groups or individuals from the left or centre who have questioned his authoritarian leadership. A Free Tibet under his leadership or programme would differ little from the slavery under which the Tibetans currently live. It's an insult to the spirit of Indymedia.ie

by Unfooled Sun Feb 06, 2011 07:45

What a joke!! His hliness when we are paying him. One Lord One God ,

by Ex-Fianna Fail Man. Sun Feb 06, 2011 09:59

Angela Merkel and Nicholas Sarcozi also say that "vast possibilities" are open to Ireland.

The first "Vast Possibility"?

Thats easy:
They dictate our tax rates.

(BTW: It's a measure of the total failure of Fianna Fail diplomacy in Europe that our once best friends in Europe, French,Dutch, Germans, Scandinavians,have turned against us totally.)

by joe Sun Feb 06, 2011 10:25

While there’s nothing in the indymedia guidelines against providing a platform for holy frauds, providing a front page feature for this hucksters and his calls for “inner revolution” at such a time is an insult.

On the same day this feature was put up an Egyptian reporter , Ahmed Mohammed Mahmoud, 36, died of gunshot wounds –the first journalist to die since the Egyptian uprising began .Also on that day the offices of Al Jazeera were raided and torched by Mubarak supporters .
The media has been deliberately targeted for reporting the counter-revolutionary bloodbath in Egypt : Indymedia where is your solidarity ?

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/4/eliminate_the_witn...otect

by Biologist. Sun Feb 06, 2011 10:51

The trouble about religious leaders is that they are not "hucksters".
(An honest to goodness huckster knows that he is a cheat and a liar.)

The Pope knows that he speaks for the creator of the universe.
As does the Dalai Lama.
As does Ian Paisley.

When you are Neurotic the fact that 1+1 =2 annoys you.
But you still have a grip on reality.

When you are Psychotic 1+1=3 is the certain truth.
You have no grip on reality.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun Feb 06, 2011 11:39

us mathematicians know full well a wun-and-one = a fish and chip in burdocks.

You 're right there bio, then once they have a few others convinced it becomes a collective self-hypnosis excercise. Not unlike that being indulged in by the sets of economic pundits pontificating from their numerologiocal pulpits walking on the corporate(and state corporate) airwaves.

But maybe a change of pontificator would be a half-way house for paddy til he shakes off the toga-boyos. If they have to go to Lhasa for induction, at least they would be absent for longer. Who knows, ten or twelve generations and we might have an outbreak of rationality. We could clock it in as import-substitution to replace the Chicago neo-conmen's consensual rationalisations.

by Lalai Dama Sun Feb 06, 2011 12:44

What? 50 euro?

How was that price arrived at?

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun Feb 06, 2011 12:54

its ten pints in liquid currency.

by JoeCassidy Sun Feb 06, 2011 14:53

Jasus - this seems to have touched a nerve. Dunno where all the facts are behind the comments on him being a right wing, anti-left homo phobe is sourced from? Maybe you are thinking of the pope?

Seems to me he's an anti-capitalist Marxist with relatively left and liberal views on all or most things. Certainly more so than most world leaders and more free thinking than some of the dogma that parts of the left comes out with.

As for the price I suppose if you don't like him then maybe don't go. As someone has pointed out you can buy 10 pints instead. We still have those freedoms of choice.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama

by joe Sun Feb 06, 2011 19:35

You can't be a "divine king" and a marxist at the same time Joe C.

The Dalai Lama supports a "responsible free market economy” .

In a recent Welt online interview he was asked :

Don’t you get a guilty conscience when you stay in luxury accommodations?

Dalai Lama: Why should I? When feel I good, I can do more for others. But of course it hurts me when I see poor people.

http://www.tibetsun.com/interviews/2009/07/04/dalai-lam...ains/

He should feel happy enough if he gets put up by Prof. Don Barry, UL President when he visits the university . Prof. Barry has recently moved into the new President's house that was built on the campus at a cost of over 2 million euros .
"His Holiness is respected all over the world as a truly inspirational spiritual teacher whose energy, compassion and wisdom touch everyone he meets." Prof. Don Barry, UL President

A picture of Prof Barry's new house here:
http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/New-house-on-campus-f...28.jp

by gramsci fan Sun Feb 06, 2011 19:54

Whatever about the Dalai Lama this is no social forum - see below.

by Dali Scammer Sun Feb 06, 2011 23:49

Scam

by joe Mon Feb 07, 2011 00:13

From the wise geek definition of a huckster :
"A huckster essentially sells products you don't need for a problem you didn't know you had, at a price you can't afford. The reason you buy it anyway is the showmanship and seduction behind the sales pitch. A good huckster is a consummate salesman who can sell products and services to practically anyone."http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-huckster.htm

Whether POSSIBILITIES 2011 is a genuine social forum or not , the Dalai Lama is most certainly a nasty rightwing piece of shit , a life long friend of Nazi war criminals like Bruno Beger http://wn.com/Bruno_Beger and Heinrich Harrer http://factandtruth.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/f-william-...-lama’s-odd-friends/ a great admirer of George W Bush http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUttyErFok4, a fervent opponent of Augusto Pinochet’s extradition to Spain in 1999 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/apr/16/pinochet.chile
“The Dalai Lama's anti-lesbian/anti-gay views are so extreme his U.S. publisher removed them from the book "Ethics for the New Millennium" for fear they would make the book unsaleable.”
http://osdir.com/ml/politics.marxism.analysis/2003-10/m....html

The divine pacifist king strongly endorses India’s right to have nuclear weapons and thinks that the US bombing of Afghanistan is justified …..

“Shoko Asahara, leader of the Supreme Truth cult in Japan and spreader of sarin nerve gas on the Tokyo subway, donated 45 million rupees, or about 170 million yen (about $1.2 million), to the Dalai Lama and was rewarded for his efforts by several high-level meetings with the divine one”

http://www.salon.com/news/1998/07/13news.html

by Daniel Mon Feb 07, 2011 13:31

"As for the price I suppose if you don't like him then maybe don't go. As someone has pointed out you can buy 10 pints instead. We still have those freedoms of choice."

Becasue of course it I had fifty euro to spare that's what I'd buy.

Patronising git.

by Aoife Mon Feb 07, 2011 14:49

"nasty rightwing piece of shit"

Sad to see the low standard of dialogue and debate in the commentary here. While Indymedia is a brilliant service, it is let down by the low level of bitter anonymous sniping and comments that plague it. It is no wonder the left has failed so miserably to win people over when this is the level we operate at.

by LisaMReilly Mon Feb 07, 2011 16:20

I can't get over the horrible comments being made here. I've bought my tickets to this event and happily so. The tickets are cheap enough in comparison to lots of things going on in the country and their website says they are giving a load of tickets away for free.

Okay so, why did I buy thje ticket? Main reason for me was because in my humble (very) opinion there's more to what's going on in the world right now other than economics and businesses and companies and money and politics. I want to look deeper. If we don't look into our soul purposes and connect with spirituality in some way in our lives, then we can get caught up in all the surface stuff and not act from our place of real power. I'm not into religion at all. Religion is dogma based, has been based on male hierachical power, corruption, money etc... but at the same time, I don't see the Dalai Lama pushing Buddhism down my throat. I dont care aboit that. I can see the bigger picture and see that this event is about looking a little deeper. I've read the Dalai Lama's books and he's all about working with what works for you.. about trusting / believeing things from your own experiences..

Waiting on being slammed now by more of your comments I guess.. but anyways

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon Feb 07, 2011 16:47

..hit the dalai fan, I see what you are saying Lisa. And, as I said above, at least its a turn away from Rome.

That said, you dont need religion and faith-based maps. All you have to do is stick to your ethical guns and examine whats afoot. Read up on Buddhism if its useful to you, but dodge the dogma bullets. You dont need gurus who charge E50 per blessing. Buddha didn't charge. Neither did Confucius(check out the I Ching for an alternative perspective on political and ethical forces). JC wasn't the worst either, in fact it was his heresy in challenging Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin got him specially renditioned. If he'd been in Ireland dermot Ahern would have booked him for blasphemy.

by LisaMReilly Mon Feb 07, 2011 17:04

Hi again,

Phew thought it was going to be alot worse that that! Jesus! Or Budhha! :)

I know I absolutely don't need religion and faith based maps. Never have and never will. I annoyed my parents many years ago for refusing to go to mass. But I have my own deep spirituality and personal faith that gives me a sense of connectedness to the world and human beings. No name for it. Just is a feeling of love for people and the earth. Simple enough. I dont want to get caught up in looking for problems, likew why this event is meant to be a sham or whatever.. but I'm goin to be in a room filled with peopel who want change and who want change on a deeper level,,, I have to look deep into myself first if I'm going to do anything true, for me forst and then in my community. I know I sound a bit fluffy an all the rest, in comparison to the stuff on this forum, but I suppose I can only speak frm the heart. I don't mind paying the 50 Euro. I don't drink and don't buy loads of clothes or anything and I try to spend my money on things that I realluy need or want.. and I want to be a this event to be inspiried and in the same space with other people who want to look at spiritual activism as a way of making real change in our world too.

by Frontpage Editor - Indymedia (pers. caps.) Mon Feb 07, 2011 18:01

Folks,

As the editor that works mostly on promoting content to the frontpage, the main reason why there is not a story about Egypt here is because there have not been any (decent) Egypt stories written for Indymedia.ie, at least none that I have come across. You have to remember that Indymedia's content is user generated and if you want to see a story about Egypt on the frontpage, then perhaps you are the person who will have to write it. We can only work with what we are given, and as a stretched editorial collective don't usually have the time to write up reports ourselves. If you look at the comments page, you'll see that the only stories being commented on about Egypt are event notices.

Now, even if there was a story on the frontpage about Egypt, I'd still be happy to put this content on the frontpage. It is quite a significant event in Ireland, it is being organised by social justice groups, and it does have the possibility to be part of (if not the beginnings of) significant change in Ireland depending on how it/things pan out.

Note: I am writing here in a personal capacity, so please don't attack the collective for my remarks.

by pat c Mon Feb 07, 2011 18:28

Your work is much appreciated and I'm sure the conference itself will produce good results. But, imho, having the godking homophobic dalai lama at the conference takes away from any good that will result. The conference is likely to be picketed by LGBT groups.

Again i wish to stress that I fully support the Tibetan People in their struggle for Self-Determination. Its not nice being oppressed by a bigger eastern neighbour for 800 years.

by JB Tue Feb 08, 2011 09:36

""I was very young when I first heard the word communist. The 13th Dalai Lama had left a testament that I read. Also, some of the monks who were helping my studies had been in monasteries with Mongolians. They had talked about the destruction that had taken place since the communists came to Mongolia. We did not know anything about Marxist ideology. But we all feared destruction and thought of communists with terror. It was only when I went to China in 1954-55 that I actually studied Marxist ideology and learned the history of the Chinese revolution. Once I understood Marxism, my attitude change completely. I was so attracted to Marxism, I even expressed my wish to become a Communist Party member."

"Tibet at that time was very, very backward. The ruling class did not seem to care, and there was much inequality. Marxism talked about an equal and just distribution of wealth. I was very much in favor of this. Then there was the concept of self-creation. Marxism talked about self-reliance, without depending on a creator or a God. That was very attractive. I had tried to some things for my people, but I did not have enough time. I still think that if a genuine communist movement had come to Tibet, there would have been much benefit to the people."
(Time Magazine; "Exile;" October 4, 1999; pp. 78,79.)

by J Tue Feb 08, 2011 09:41

"“From society’s viewpoint, mutually agreeable homosexual relations can be of mutual benefit, enjoyable and harmless.”
- Dalai Lama

by J Tue Feb 08, 2011 09:51

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Dalai_Lama#CIA_backing

"In October 1998, The Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the US government through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and also trained a resistance movement in Colorado (USA).[84] When asked by CIA officer John Kenneth Knaus in 1995 whether the organisation did a good or bad thing in providing its support, the Dalai Lama replied that though it helped the morale of those resisting the Chinese, "thousands of lives were lost in the resistance" and further, that "the US Government had involved itself in his country's affairs not to help Tibet but only as a Cold War tactic to challenge the Chinese."[85]"

-----------------------

It seems this is the evidence that exists and the D.L has publicly spoken about this, saying the support came to his administration - during the cold war - at a time when he was fleeing Tibet and it was something as a teenage leader he wasn't aware of. It seems the U.S and the CIA abandoned any support for Tibet afterwards.

I think some of the allegations here needs to be some context of the times and the situation. Although if you want to believe he's a CIA agent then so be it.

by Flo Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:08

Some very interesting reading in relation to this debate....

The Dalai Lama: A very earthly representative
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/faith/the-dalai-la....html

"He has also incurred the wrath of Christopher Hitchens for accepting money from the leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, which was later to release lethal sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system. But the Dalai Lama has always criticised himself for endorsing the man and his organisation – even saying that it showed he wasn't infallible or divine after all.

All of which must make us ask: is the Dalai Lama a bad guy? Or is he merely a disappointment to many people who wish he were something he isn't? Pico Iyer, in his 2008 biography, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, writes that his subject is the victim of Western preconceptions about Tibet as the heavenly Shangri-La depicted in James Hilton's 1930s novel Lost Horizon. The West would like Tibet to remain a prelapsarian, pre-modern place of innocent happiness, and the Dalai Lama to be the kind of divine princeling depicted in the films Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet. They would rather not hear the princeling criticise the barbaric feudal system in which he grew up, or listen to his conviction that a modern Tibet needs to be grafted to a modern China to become a strong economic unit, rather than a Black Narcissus fantasy. To the Chinese he is a "separatist", a "splitter", a troublesome demagogue to whom Mao Tse-tung once bluntly said: "Religion is a poison". To Tibetans he is a beloved leader, but one who sucks up to the West and is seen as weak by the Chinese. To Buddhists, he is a bringer of confusion rather than enlightenment, and an intimate of Hollywood nincompoops such as Steven Seagal. To conspiracy theorists, he is a shady customer, a Marxist sympathiser, a recipient of CIA dollars. But there is something entirely heartening about the way he moves through this cacophony of disapproval with Zen-like calm, recommending mutual understanding, global unity, decent compromise. He's the boy from the Tibetan backwoods who found himself sitting on a golden throne, only to lose it for exile in the mountains and a life of fame and celebrity in the West – a man from an elderly fairy tale, losing his home, finding a new one on the other side of the world, and refusing to wallow in the past. "In Tibet," writes Pico Iyer, "the Dalai Lama was an embodiment of an old culture that, cut off from the world, spoke for an ancient, even lost, traditionalism. Now, in exile, he is an avatar of the new, as if, having travelled eight centuries in five decades, he is increasingly, with characteristic directness, leaning in, toward tomorrow."

by Baggie Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:12

This is a man who thinks he is a God. In most countries he'd be locked up as a lunatic.

What is Indymedia playing at giving airtime to this establishment lackey?

by Unbeliever. Mon Feb 21, 2011 23:07

"This is a man who thinks he is a God. In most countries he'd be locked up as a lunatic."

Not really unusual.
Western Christian priests talk to a god all the time.

The Christian leader in Rome claims to be infallible because a god speaks wisdom into his ear.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue Feb 22, 2011 10:28

.. you get the devout economical church who spend all their time(lotsa mediots in the congregation too)bowing towards the sacred Invisible Hand of the Market.

They have a wonderful line in numerological hymnsheets that the Chicago apostles scriptured for them under the messiahship of Milton Friedman. Thatcher and Reagan were his great evangelists in the last century. The PDs brought the faith to pagan Ireland where it worked the famous miracle of converting a plastic blow-up tiger into a hallowed sweat-shop worshipped and venerated by bondholders down to the very dividend, aye men.

All praise to our one true and glorious church of Mammon.Halal EU ja.

by Baggie Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:09

I can see a turf war breaking out with the Catholic Church about this.

by Ballinspittle Statue Wed Feb 23, 2011 14:37

The statue at Ballinspittle is beginning to rock-n-roll again over the evils of the world.
.